It's been a good month for me as an author. I've had the second highest (none free) sales since I started. It's been a bit weird at times. I had my first real life event, got pretty stressed out about that and may have gone a bit quiet after but I had nearly a weeks worth of all day meetings at work and generally wanted some time to recharge after.
I have still been working hard to progress, here's what I've been up to:
Moon Girl 1: Moon Rise Stage: Marketing Working hard making sure Moon Girl 1 gets some sales. This month I had my first real life Moon Girl event. I was given an hour in a room at the Storyhouse in my local city of Chester to meet some readers and sell some books. Honestly, it didn't go too well. I only sold one book but it was better than nothing. I did at least get some good information on a place I could organise a signing and basically an invite to another writing group. After that event, my marketing focus has turned to getting organised for Chester comic con.
Moon Girl 2: Bell Tole Stage: Final Draft Quite a lot has happened with Moon Girl 2. I got my draft back from my beta reader and have gone through it since, correcting things and improving things. The manuscript itself I think is ready *touch wood* The first chapter of Moon Girl 2 had also been made available on my website. You can get access to it in the previews and extras section by signing up to the website. The only thing Moon Girl 2 is now waiting for is the cover which is fine as I don't plan on publishing until October so there is still some time. It's kind of scary to think that because last time I had some help setting up the publishing of Moon Girl 1. It cost me but at least the help of people who knew what they were doing. I'm leaving the nest so to speak on this one.
Moon Girl 3 Stage: Third Draft Moon Girl 3 is making good progress though it has slowed as Moon 2 took priority as soon as I got it back. I have finished going through Grammarly with it and am now going through it again and improving the story based on the feedback I got last month.
Moon Girl 4 Stage: First Draft Generally, Moon Girl 4 is coming along well. I'm not making very fast progress on it as it's not a very high priority right now but I'm working on it in some spare time. I'm not sure if I'm happy with the start of it so far, it's not as exciting as the others but I have to keep reminding myself that's because I'm having to deal with the fallout from the last book. Hopefully, I'll make peace with it or have a better idea on where to start.
Police Work is Hell Stage: First Draft/Planning This story is super fun and is somehow over 50 pages already when it doesn't feel like I've spent that long on it. I'm getting to a point though where I have to go back and start making notes on where I want this to go, who the characters are etc. Generally, start organising my thoughts, there's only so far you can go making it up as you go along. This is normally where stories fall down with me, I'm not very good at the whole world building thing but I hold out hope for this one. I've got some good ideas for it I just have to organise them in some way now. My writing group decided this month we would go through some of each others work and I sent them the start of this. I got some really good honest feedback from the group to think about when going over it again.
Moon Girl Extra: Charity Month Stage: First Draft Making good progress on this. Finally got through the first round of basketball super fights and looking forward to the next round though this isn't too high on the priority list so apologies if it isn't out anytime soon. I'll admit though it's been interesting writing something completely different. I can't say I've written much sport overall so it's a fun challenge. I only have two more matches to go in it and I plan to release it into the extra's area with a load in images into the gallery at some point.
World Crystal Stage: First Draft/Planning I haven't done too much more on this but I go back to it every so often. It's about the same point as Police Work is Hell. I need to plan stuff. I know overall what's going to happen but I need to get some specifics and start the task of world building.
Next month I have my first convention as a vendor and should be well on my way to the release of Moon Girl 2: Bell Tole. Until next month the best place to check for updates is my twitter: @BRSBooks It's the place I'm most active.